Big Data

The well-known three Vs of Big Data - Volume, Variety, and Velocity – are increasingly placing pressure on organizations that need to manage this data as well as extract value from this data deluge for Predictive Analytics and Decision-Making. Big Data technologies, services, and tools such as Hadoop, MapReduce, Hive and NoSQL/NewSQL databases and Data Integration techniques, In-Memory approaches, and Cloud technologies have emerged to help meet the challenges posed by the flood of Web, Social Media, Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) data flowing into organizations.

Big Data Articles

Three new e-learning courses have been introduced to help foster expertise in big data and analytics, fraud analytics, and credit risk modeling. The courses were developed by Big Data Quarterly columnist Bart Baesens, who is a professor at KU Leuven (Belgium), and a lecturer at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom). The courses are being offered in partnership with SAS, but do not focus on the software but, instead, on the general concepts and modeling steps.

Alation and Trifacta say they are extending their partnership to jointly deliver an integrated solution for self-service data discovery and preparation that enables users to access the data catalog and data wrangling features within a single interface.

Now is the time to register for the Large Tape User Group's (LTUG) Annual Spring conference! The can't miss event is coming up on May 1-4 in Broomfield, Colorado and the early bird pricing has just been extended through March 20th.

Signals from IoT-enabled devices represent an opportunity for organizations to better manage, interpret, and leverage data, and the organizations that have the ability to integrate device data into their business processes and applications can gain critical predictive insights and drive cost-effective actions.

The new IOUG SELECT has just launched and is moving from a traditional quarterly publication format to a dynamic intelligence hub where timely and relevant content is published on a continual basis. And, for one month only, SELECT will be available to members and non-members alike

The rise of big data and the growing popularity of cloud is a combination that presents valuable new opportunities to leverage data with greater efficiency. But organizations also need to be aware of some key differences between on-premise and cloud deployments, says Charles Zedlewski, senior vice president, products, at Cloudera.

The SAP HANA express edition platform is now available from Google Cloud Launcher, allowing users the space to grow and gain real-time insights. SAP HANA on GCP will be able to deliver real-time insights and run mission-critical applications and analytics on a scalable and secure cloud infrastructure. GCP will provide an automated provisioning capability of certified SAP HANA instances to deliver enterprise-grade security, high availability, disaster recovery, and scalability.

A team at SAP is diving into the world of college basketball again this year to help bring sanity to March Madness through the latest innovations in the cloud analytics product SAP BusinessObjects Cloud. Using the 2017 NCAA Division I men's basketball championships to highlight the value of analytics and hard data over intuition or sentiment, the Data Genius team at SAP is forecasting which of the 68 college basketball teams will advance in this year's tournament.

DataStax is unveiling new solutions to help users achieve their Customer Experience (CX) goals as part of a new comprehensive strategy the company is deploying. DataStax is unveiling the new DataStax CX Data Solution. Additionally, DataStax announced a new version of its flagship product, DataStax Enterprise (DSE), furthering its leadership position as the always-on data platform of choice for modern cloud applications.

Data has been at or near the top of every enterprise agenda for more than a decade, and yet, research shows that more than 66% of Global 2000 senior executives are still dissatisfied with their data investments and capabilities, says Thornton May, CEO of FutureScapes Advisors, Inc., who will present the opening keynote at Data Summit 2017.

MapR Technologies has added a small footprint edition of the MapR Converged Data Platform to address the need to capture, process, and analyze data generated by IoT devices close to the source. MapR Edge enables secure local processing, quick aggregation of insights on a global basis, and the ability to push intelligence back to the edge for faster business impact.

Infoworks.io, Inc., which provides data warehousing on Hadoop, has closed $15 million in a Series B financing which it will use to scale go-to-market and customer success programs to meet customer demand.

Impetus Technologies, has announced StreamAnalytix 3.0, which adds support for Apache Spark-based batch processing and enriched online and offline machine learning features. The new capabilities are targeted at helping enterprises improve the performance of their analytical models and achieve more favorable business outcomes. StreamAnalytix 3.0 will be available under a beta program online by the end of April 2017.

Zoomdata, the developer of a visual analytics platform for big data, has announced the launch of a new Smart Connector for the Vertica Advanced Analytics database from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Vertica systems integrator, Clarity Insights, will offer customers pre-integrated Zoomdata packages for Vertica as well as other supported data sources.

Cloudera, which provides an analytics platform built on Hadoop and other open source software, has unveiled the Cloudera Data Science Workbench, a new self-service tool for data science that is based on the company's recent acquisition of Sense.io. The Cloudera Data Science Workbench is currently in beta.

IBM has introduced new DevOps tools on Bluemix, its developer platform, intended to enable companies and development teams to continuously and automatically ensure the quality of the code in their apps.

Thales, a provider of cybersecurity and data security, will partner with BT, a provider of communications services and solutions, to provide Vormetric Transparent Encryption to its users. Vormetric Transparent Encryption helps customers encrypt data-at-rest, control privileged user access, and manage a collection of security intelligence logs without re-engineering applications, databases or infrastructure.

Unravel Data, which provides an application performance management (APM) platform designed to simplify DataOps, has unveiled a new set of automated actions for improving big data operations and performance.

In-memory technologies have the ability to bring faster insights to users and applications, potentially bringing analytics to new levels. At Data Summit 2017, Viktor Gamov, senior solutions architect at Hazelcast, will drill down on what users need to know to be successful using in-memory data technology.

Dataguise's DgSecure Detect platform now supports sensitive data detection on Google Cloud Storage (GCS), allowing users to leverage Google's powerful object storage service to understand where sensitive data is located. Integration with GCS extends the range of platforms supported by DgSecure Detect, which helps data-driven enterprises move to the cloud with confidence by providing precise sensitive data detection across the enterprise, both on premises and in the cloud.

Teradata is introducing a new platform in the open source space that will deliver unprecedented efficiencies for companies creating data lakes. Teradata is launching Kylo, a data lake management software platform built using the latest open source capabilities such as Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, and Apache NiFi.

SAP is making enhancements to its cloud platform, allowing users to take it on the go and adding comprehensive new business services to the solution. SAP plans to deliver an SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS, giving developers the tools needed to build powerful enterprise apps for iPhone and iPad devices.

AtScale is releasing 5.0 of its signature platform, introducing new features such as a dimensional calculation engine, a machine learning performance optimizer, a universal data abstraction layer, and enterprise-grade security, governance and metadata management capabilities.

ThreatConnect, Inc., provider of an intelligence-driven security platform, is integrating with Phantom Cyber, PhishMe, Dragos, Atlassian Jira Software, ServiceNow, and Recorded Future, to provide services to its users. Integrating the ThreatConnect Platform with other security solutions empowers security teams to be more efficient and better protect their network.

RedPoint Global, a provider of data management and customer engagement technology, is introducing the RedPoint Customer Engagement Hub (CEH) solution, providing enterprises with tools to overcome challenges caused by the gap between customer expectations and the actual experience brands deliver. The RedPoint Customer Engagement Hub enables brands to continuously connect with customers in a relevant way and deliver the promise of the brand across all touchpoints.

Arcadia Data, a provider of visual analytics software, has announced the launch of Arcadia Enterprise 4.0, with enhancements for building, branding, sharing, and embedding data-centric applications to help make Apache Hadoop and cloud-based data lakes more accessible and valuable to internal and external users.

Ash Munshi, Pepperdata CEO, recently discussed the need for DevOps for big data, and the role of the Dr. Elephant project, which was open sourced in 2016 by LinkedIn and is available under the Apache v2 License.

Teradata is launching Teradata IntelliCloud, its next generation secure managed cloud offering that provides data and analytic software as a service (SaaS). IntelliCloud ensures software consistency while increasing business agility and boosting focus on data-driven analytic insights that have meaningful business outcomes.

Beta Systems, provider of identity and access management solutions, is updating its Identity & Access Management Suite, offering more flexibility across the platform. The product family, for the first time presented under the new GARANCY product label, features new improvements that will tackle the ongoing changes and emerging requirements that affect all corporate areas of the customer base.

Talend is releasing an Apache Beam-powered solution for self-service, big data preparation with the goal of speeding time to insights. Apache Beam is a unified programming model for executing both batch and streaming data processing pipelines that are portable across a variety of runtime platforms. And Talend Data Preparation is a self-service solution to enable more employees to access, cleanse, and analyze large data sets. Ultimately, the combination of both platforms is designed to help companies speed the time to insight by enabling more users to build data projects that can be run anywhere using the latest processing innovation.

Tableau Software is releasing an updated version of its namesake platform, bringing advanced mapping capabilities to the analytics solution. Tableau 10.2 will make complex geospatial analysis easier, simplify data prep with new ways to combine and clean data, and give enterprises more tools to deliver self-service analytics at scale, according to the company.

Welcome to the inaugural MongoDB Matters column, which will appear six times a year in Database Trends and Applications. Over the past 8 years, we've seen a truly once-in-a-generation explosion of new database technologies which have challenged—if not overthrown—the dominance of the venerable relational database. Of all these upstart databases, MongoDB seemed to us to most deserve dedicated coverage because of its strong momentum and adoption.

The Simple Storage Service (S3) outage that took place on Feb. 28 prompted observations and reflections from industry experts about the need for proactive cloud services monitoring, the requirement to diversify with multi-cloud strategies, and even the possibility of "too-big-to-fail" safeguards for large cloud services providers.

There is a lot of lot of buzz around IoT, with many companies today seeking to find ways that machine to machine data will affect their industries and their own organizations, according to John O'Brien, principal advisor and CEO, Radiant Advisors, who will present a talk at Data Summit 2017 on "IoT Adoption & Maturity Today."

Kore Technologies will participate in an Eclipse User Group (UFO) Webinar to discuss real-time enterprise application integration practices. Mark Dobransky, co-founder and managing partner at Kore, and Keith Lambert, vice president of marketing and business developemt at Kore, will provide a demonstration of how users can quickly build and deploy secure REST APIs for Eclipse with Kore's latest release of Kourier Integrator and the Kourier REST Gateway.

Registration is open and the program is available for review for DBTA's 2017 Data Summit conference, a unique event that brings together IT practitioners and business stakeholders alike. This year's conference will take place at the New York Hilton Midtown from Tuesday, May 16, to Wednesday, May 17, with preconference workshops on Monday, May 15.

OPTO Software, part of iTMS Software Services Pty Ltd., provides manufacturing inventory software, including ERP solutions, to a wide variety of industries. Customers span the fields of manufacturing, mining, civil, fabrication, and engineering as well as distribution, retail and wholesale, construction, and importing and exporting. A key differentiator for iTMS/OPTO is its deep understanding of the nuances of manufacturing. Revelation supports that agility, ensuring that OPTO platform is easily configured.

The onslaught of fast data is growing in size, complexity, and speed, spurred by increasing business demands along with the rise of the Internet of Things. Because of this, operationalizing insights at the point-of-action has become a top priority. New technologies are coming to the forefront to facilitate real-time analytics, including in-memory platforms, self-service BI tools, and all-flash storage arrays.

The Georgia Oracle Users Group Tech Days conference is coming up, and this year we've extended the learning to two days! The conference is March 9 - 10, 2017, at the Loudermilk Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Oracle is introducing version of 4.3 of its NoSQL Database, a key-value database that has evolved from the company's acquisition of BerkeleyDB Java Edition, an embeddable database. The new release offers key enhancements for the open source community, as well as cloud, and Oracle Database Enterprise Edition customers, said Ashok Joshi, senior director of NoSQL, Berkeley Database, and Database Mobile Server at Oracle

Today's successful organizations are data-driven, and many are building, maintaining, and accessing databases that scale well beyond the terabyte range. In fact, many have total data assets that now measure in the petabytes. But it's not just the size of databases that is expanding.